In his remarks at the official opening of the 2017 tobacco marketing season, Made said the companies required local support, as well as foreign currency and “will play their part in terms of human resources”.

“As we generate more foreign currency, we want to be given priority on foreign currency allocations so that all the imports we are talking about, we will be able to meet them,” Made said.

“We can’t talk of production without talking of issues that relate to soil fertility.” He said the inputs required include insecticides, herbicides and top dressing fertilisers.

“Farmers must go into the field now and allocation of resources to supporting companies must be done now.”

In May last year, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe came up with a four-tier import priority list for the efficient use of foreign exchange resources, with a bias towards supporting the productive sectors of the economy and reducing the import bill.

The first priority is given to the importation of raw materials. However, due to the foreign currency shortages, companies are struggling to access the foreign exchange to import raw materials.